Walk on the Moon Cast and Crew

Walk on the Moon Synopsis

Set in 1969, the "summer of love", in upstate New York. Pearl Kantrowitz (Lane) is a married woman in her early 30s who is feeling stuck. With her husband away, she indulges her attraction to the "blouse man" Walker Jerome (Viggo Mortensen). She experiences wonderful new things, including making love under a waterfall and a day at Woodstock, but of course her actions threaten not only her marriage but the welfare of her two children.

Walk on the Moon Brief Review

Liev Schreiber, Anna Paquin, and Tovah Feldshuh provide strong support as Pearl's husband, coming-of-age daughter, and mother in law, respectively. All the characters are played as multi-dimensional, deeply caring people who are going through difficult transitions. Perhaps things work out a little too easily but I enjoyed the movie thoroughly.

If you've watched this movie on TV, you know that some of the scenes between Viggo and Diane are quite intimate, even erotic. But you may not realize that the best bits were censored for TV. Their omissions also make the TV version somewhat choppy and confusing.

A Walk on the Moon Articles & Interviews

Viggo Mortensen: Renaissance Man - Cleveland Plain Dealer, April 1, 1999Interview sets the scene at a showing of Viggo Mortensen's photographs, then provides Viggo's take on Walk on the Moon and the upcoming 28 Days.

Mooning Over Viggo Mortensen - USA Today, April 21, 1999The interviewer is slightly confused about Viggo's film roles, saying that Viggo spends "much of [his] screen time making love to the most beautiful and desirable women imaginable" and then names Demi Moore (G.I. Jane) and Julianne Moore (Psycho) as two of those women. But still, the article includes some interesting quotes from Mortensen regarding on-screen romance and his preparation for his roles in A Walk on the Moon and 28 Days. [Viggo-Works] [Brego.net]

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Walk on the Moon Movie Resources

A Walk on the Moon: Request for Director's Cut - Fans of A Walk on the Moon are requesting that the studio release a multi-region "Director's Cut" DVD that includes a number of deleted scenes between Viggo Mortensen and Diane Lane. Sign the petition online.

Playing Dodgeball with Woodstock, Moon Walk - Feb. 1999 interview with Tony Goldwyn, director of Walk on the Moon, on the production and casting of the film. "When I saw some of Viggo's work, I thought, that's always who I've had in my head. I realized there is not one other actor anywhere who could play Viggo's part other than Viggo. He has this kind of complexity and mysteriousness to him. He doesn't have to say much and you get a lot."

Walk on the Moon Movie Reviews

Barnaby Marriott Reviews: A Walk On The Moon - Marriott calls A Walk on the Moon "One of the most underrated and charming motion pictures to be released in the 1990s," with special appreciation for the quality of the cast. "What makes such a simple story so enthralling to watch is when such a fine cast all make their characters so believably real and sympathetic, in particular Diane Lane in the lead role of Pearl." He also commends Mortensen: "Many critics and filmgoers claimed that Viggo Mortensen's character was too one-dimensional and not rounded out properly. In my opinion, Viggo portrays Walker Jerome EXACTLY how the script intended - subtle and mysterious, but still played to the hilt."

Cozzi fan Tutti Review: A Walk on the Moon - Serious in-depth review with a tongue-in-cheek attitude calls A Walk on the Moon a "gem of a film." I quote: "lovingly married fourteen years to Marty, a pleasant but plodding TV repairman, [Pearl] often wonders what her life might have been had had she not been tied down with a family at seventeen, spending the summers playing mah-jongg.... Enter Walker Jerome, ... a chiseled-jawed Nordic god right off the cover of a romance novel, a self-contained Merry Prankster in his own converted schoolbus, out of which he sells schmattes to the housewives in the camp. Sparks fly, and soon Pearl is getting schtupped and -- oy gevalt! -- muff-dived ... just as Neil Armstrong lands on the moon." She concludes, "For all its hot sex in the summer of love, A WALK ON THE MOON is a deeply moral, yet uplifting film that never deteriorates into preachiness in its message that getting in touch with yourself need not involve destroying your family."

Dustin's Review: A Walk On The Moon - Dustin Putman reluctantly pans A Walk on the Moon, saying that it "feels like a rough cut of a possibly good movie. There's a fulfilling one lurking around in there somewhere, but the film feels too rushed and, because of this, no emotional momentum is allowed to build up. I liked Pearl, and I liked Alison, and Marty, but I'd like them even more in a better overall film." Overall he praises the acting but says, "Viggo Mortensen is the one weak link in the central roles, but I suspect this is due to his underwritten role of the 'blouse man.' There is no room given for Mortensen to create a definite personality, and director Goldwyn unwisely chooses to add a bunch of pointless sex scenes to stand as character development."

Films of Viggo Mortensen: A Walk on the Moon - Two positive reviews of A Walk on the Moon. The first acknowledges the conflicts in the film, saying that "no one walks away without consequences, but these are lovingly and directly addressed and there is hope with which we come away from the film." The second review calls it, "A lovely ... film portraying a time of change and a bygone atmosphere of 1969 small town Americana."

Review: A Walk on the Moon - TalkCinema's Harlan Jacobson finds little to dislike about Walk on the Moon and reports that audiences around the country loved it. "Diane Lane as Pearl Kantrowitz and Viggo Mortenson as Walker Jerome--hey, that name's backwards everybody keeps saying--capture the moment quietly and perfectly as unexpected lovers stepping into the Blouse Man's truck...." Still he rates it only 2.5/5 stars.

Roger Ebert: A Walk on the Moon - Ebert's 2-star review for the Chicago Sun-Times pinpoints the reason the film appeals more to female audiences than to reviewers: "The movie's problem is that it loads the casting in a way that tilts the movie in the direction of a Harlequin romance. Mortensen looks like one of those long-haired, bare-chested, muscular buccaneers on the covers of the paperbacks; all he needs is a gothic tower behind him, with one light in a window. The movie exhibits almost unseemly haste in speeding Pearl and the Blouse Man toward lovemaking, and then lingers over their sex scenes as if they were an end in themselves, and not a transgression in a larger story. As Pearl and the Blouse Man cavort naked under a waterfall, the movie forgets its ethical questions and becomes soft-core lust."

And he laments the way that the coming-of-age story gets second billing: "Somewhere in the midst of the dramaturgy is a fine performance by Anna Paquin (from The Piano) as a teenage girl struggling with new ideas and raging hormones. Every time I saw her character onscreen, I thought: There's the real story."

Screen It: A Walk on the Moon - Review focused on the message of the film praises the quality of the acting, but finds Pearl's character unsympathetic because "she has an affair and then wants everything to be back to normal." The site also details the drug use, sexuality, violence, profanity and other elements parents might want to consider when deciding whether their children may watch the film.

Side-stepping summer of '69 cliches - Detailed review of Walk on the Moon from SPLICEDwire, April 1999, congratulates the director and cast for making a good film from a potentially smarmy story. "Mortensen... is also perfectly cast, skillfully side-stepping all stereotypes even though he plays a sensitive, seductive beatnik."

Walk on the Moon Photo Gallery

I've picked my favorite shots, and tried to arrange them in the order of the story. Some are my own screencaps, some from the Viggo Obsession site (see link directly above), others from various Internet sources.